Product Description
The must-read new novel from Nikki Gemmell – as provocative and as deeply felt as her international bestseller The Bride Stripped Bare.
Three children wake up in a basement room. They have been drugged and taken from their beds in the middle of the night. Now they are here. Alone.
Where are their parents? Who can they trust? The family has been betrayed to the government and Salt Cottage, their home on a cliff top above the ocean, is no longer safe. Their mother's scientific work has put them all in danger. To protect them, she must let them go. She must put her faith in an old family friend – and in her children's own resilience and courage.
Searing, provocative and unputdownable, The Book of Rapture challenges our beliefs about science, about children, and about trust. As passionate as The Bride Stripped Bare, it will compel, seduce and haunt you.
From the Author
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I love chocolate and vintage clothes and sunlight and laughter. And I never get enough sleep. This may be because I have three little kids always climbing all over me. I write in short chapters. This may also be because I have three little kids climbing all over me.
2. What books have had a lasting impact on you?
Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”. Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead”. Michael Ondaatje’s “Coming Through Slaughter”. Cormac McCarthy’s “All The Pretty Horses.” Michel Houellebecq’s “Atomised”. Alessandro Baricco’s “Silk”. Carol Shield’s “Unless”. Why? The authors’ fearlessness, their individual voices, the courage to tackle big issues and their ability to wrench my heart.
3. Why do you write?
It’s what I want to do in life. What I need to do. When I can’t write I feel lost and agitated - writing is my balm, it stills me down, calms me. I’m a much happier person if I can glean the space to write, even though it feels like I’m always stealing time from someone else as I’m doing it.
4. As an author, what are you most proud (or embarrassed) of writing?
I was hugely embarrassed by my book “The Bride Stripped Bare.” It was so excruciatingly honest and raw that I published it anonymously. Big mistake – I was quickly outed. The whole experience introduced me to migraine headaches and sleepless nights, but then the readers’ letters started coming in. They had responded to the honesty of the writing, and that was enormously uplifting. It made me realise a fundamental lesson of writing: through honesty, you connect.
5. What is your biggest failure?
Learning how to cook. Or more precisely, not learning. The poor husband, that’s all I can say.
6. When you were a kid, what did you think were you going to be when you grew up?
A writer. From the moment I read “Jane Eyre,” that’s what I wanted to be. I was electrified by the book, couldn’t put it down. I can still remember my heart-lurch at the line "reader, I married him."
7. If you could go anywhere in time for one day, where would you go and why?
To a Mauritian beach with my family, under a tall blue sky. I need the light in my bones. And there are no four people I’d prefer to be with.
8. Do you like reading on e-books?
I’ve never done it. This makes me feel about one hundred and two. I also don’t have a mobile phone. This question agitates me in a similar way to being confronted by Ikea flatpack furniture or a parking metre that will only accept payment by mobile phone. Ie panicky and frustrated that the world has left me behind, and doesn’t care.
9. Who are the five people, living or dead, you'd invite to a party? Cherished mates, from various parts of the world. Because I never see enough of the people I love.
10. What are you working on at the moment? (doesn't have to be a literary answer)
More sleep. I never get enough. There are constant musical beds in this gloriously mad house. I wish I could be like Sylvia Plath and write at four in the morning, but I’m too buggered. I cleave to sleep (when I can get it.)
About the Author
Nikki Gemmell is the author of four novels, including the international best-seller ‘The Bride Stripped Bare’. She lives in London with her family.
